I'll be honest: I was a little confused when I saw this book in paperback. I recognized Nathan Filer's name, and I recognized the premise of this book in the catalog, but when I read it a year ago the title was Where the Moon Isn't. When the publisher's released the paperback, they changed the name. But, no worries, it's the same book.

I love a good unreliable narrator. And The Shock of the Fall has this in spades. Matthew is telling the story of the night his brother, Simon, disappeared. But the entire time you're reading this, something seems off about Matthew's account of what happened. The problem is, the story is told through Matthew's perspective, so you have no way of knowing what doesn't seem quite right, or what's really going on.

The Shock of the Fall won the Costa Book Award for First Novel, and it's not hard to see why. As twisted as it is, Filer's writing is incredibly tight. It draws you in and keeps you there, rolling around in every new revelation, through the entire book.

It seems like mental illness is gaining a large presence in contemporary literature, and I think part of this is because it can be used so many different ways within a story. In Sarah Rayner's Another Night, Another Day (which I reviewed last week) we get the torment mental illness can cause on a family, and the process healing requires. In The Shock of the Fall mental illness takes a much more sinister role. But because we get such a subjected view -- we don't see Matthew from a third person vantage point, we only see him through his own perspective -- we are forced on this wild without truly knowing what's going on. I believe this is the power of this novel.

The Shock of the Fall is a really great debut novel and yet another bit of proof to why I love debut novels the best. Filer is holding nothing back, and what emerges is a young boy attempting to tell you what happened to his brother, in the only way he can.

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THE BOOK ROULETTE

LONESOME DOVE,BY LARRY MCMURTRY

Disclaimer: I use a variety of resources to illustrate my ideas and opinions in the posts that I write -- including music, television, film and other books. Regarding spoilers, my policy is this -- I will not publish spoilers up until the following time periods have lapsed: One month for television episodes and music albums, one year for films and books.